Originally Posted by
crewdawg
Speaking of golden days, someone posted something recently that got me thinking. What is the benefit of golden days anymore. You're only helping them with rest requirements and they can still reroute you into them. With 18 hour callout, you're effectively released at 0600 on your last day anyway. They're pretty stingy about 1 day SC's so I'm not sure there is much of a gain there. This person said they actaully swap their off days to clear them off their schedule. Never thought much about it, but they seem to have a point. I'm probably missing something though.
I have similar feelings though an occasional golden day is useful to better protect me from being extended a day after my last day of reserve. It has happened to me a couple of times and seemingly always on the worst day for it to occur. Another downside of a golden day is it prevents you from doing any IAs on your day off, which really sucks when they are running hot.
My preference would be to allow reserves to bid UP TO a max amount of golden days, but if they bid for less then they are awarded less.